Formaat Flemish Federation of Youthclubs

2. Formaat Flemish Federation of Youthclubs • Youthclub: • A place where young people get together, meet other people and organise activities like parties, different workshops, gamenights, … • Run by young people (volunteers) • Main task: Supporting and stimulating the flemish youthclubs • Documentation and information about the (youth)policy,youthwork, insurances,… • A variety of workshops and question-based education • We create platforms where youthclubs can meet each other and exchange experiences

3. Recognition and identification of competences • Why Apel? • Young people learn a lot as a volunteer in a youthclub • Responsability, working together, respect for other peoples work,… • They actually learn by doing • Different from the more formal learning in schools • We want make those learning experiences more visible.

4. Recognition and identification of competences • Focus on the recognition and identification of competences by young people • Primary goal: • To enable young people to become aware of their capacities • Focus on the personal development of young people • A person is aware of what he’s capable of. If he can identify, recognize and prove his competences.

5. Recognition and identification of competences • Difficulties: • Reflecting on own behaviour is often confronting and threathening. • The concept ‘competence’ is often a new concept for youngsters • Youngsters sometimes don’t link what they do in a youthclub with learning.

6. Recognition and identification of competences • Formaat Open Youthwork Flanders wants to develop a methods to support young people in the process of becoming aware of their competences. • Important goals of these methods • To make clear that young people also learn a lot of things in their involvement as a youthclub - volunteer • To introduce the concept ‘competence’ • To learn young people to think in terms of competences • To stimulate youngsters to reflect on their own behaviour and competences

8. Identification, Recognition and Validation of competences obtained in youthwork • Timing: from august 2006 till 15 october 2007 • Location: Province of West-Flanders • General Goal: ‘Youngsters are aware of the competences they obtain through a voluntary involvement in youthwork. This competences play an important role in their personal and professional development.’ • To achieve this the research is split into three phases.

9. Fase 1: Research in Youthclubs • Goal: ‘Youngsters are aware of the competences they obtain through a voluntary involvement in a Youthclub' • Most important tasks • The development of a list of the keycompetences (and their most important indicators) that can be obtained in Youthclubs • The development of a methods to recongize competences of youngsters • Timing • September 06 till March 07

10. Fase 2: Introduction of the project to the other forms of youthwork • Goal: • ‘Youngsters are aware of the competences they obtain through a voluntary involvement in youthwork.’ • Most imporant tasks • The organisation of a conference to introduce our project to other kinds of youthwork and share visions about the recognition of competences obtained in youthwork • Invite youthworkers and organizations to adjust the developped methodology to the context and demands of the broader youthwork. • Timing • March 07 till june/july 07

11. Fase Three: introduction of our project to the jobmarket. • Goal: ‘Competences obtained in youthwork are valuable to the personal and professional development of youngsters’ • Most important tasks: • The organization of interviews with partners from the employability-sector to learn how they feel about the usefullness of the validation of competences obtained in youthwork. • The development of a document enlisting a few important criteria for an instrument for the validation of competences obtained in youthwork

12. What is and will developped? • List with 23 keycompetences • A toolbox with methods for Youth workorganisations

13. List of Keycompetences • We developped a list of keycompetences young people generally can obtain in Youthwork. • What are keycompetences? • Why keycompetences? • Which keycompetences can be obtained in a youthhouse?

14. Keycompetences? • Competences generally can be divided in two categories • Professional or technical competences: • Obtained and used in a professional context • Job- and task- related • ‘Learning for job’ (Baert) • Examples: knowing how to write a report, … • Keycompetences or generic competences • obtained and used in different aspects of life: work, school, sports, hobbies, at home, in youthwork • Key competences are multifunctional • Key competences are unbearable for ones personal development • ‘learning for chance’ (Baert) • Keycompetences are strongly contextrelated • Examples: flexibility, problemsolving skills, responsabilty,…

15. Why Keycompetences? • Youthwork and youthclubs are places youngsters can freely experiment with competences (Ambach & Hatse, 2004). • In their engagement they learn and use a variety of skills and competences that are important for their further life and carreers.

16. Which keycompetences • The Flemisch federation of Youthclubs wants to identify the keycompetences youngsters generally learn and use in their involvement as youthwork-volunteer. • Based on the insights following the recent projects we put together a list of 23 competences

17. List of key competences • Based on interviews with youngsters and youthworkers, internal and academic research and existing lists of competences. • 23 keycompetences divided in three subcategories • Social competences • Personal competences • Task-related competences

18. List of keycompetences

19. List of keycompetences • How is each competence described? • An objective and theoritical description • A concrete example to link the competence to the context of a Youthclub • A list of actions in which the competence is used.

20. List of keycompetences • For example: The competence ‘Autonomy’ Description: The youngster knows how to plan, carry out and controle a task autonomiously and asks for help when needed Example: Joline can take care of an openingnight of the youthclub on her own. Actions: The youngster knows what’s needed to carry out a certain task. The youngster can carry out tasks on his own. The youngster respects appointments.

21. List of keycompetences • The most important goal of the list is to clarify what young people can learn as a volunteer in a youthclub - youthwork . • The learning in a youthclub is not limited to the skills described in this list!

22. Toolbox for Youthwork organisations • We want to give youth(club)workers methods to help young people become more aware of the competences they obtain through youthwork. • Elements of the toolbox: • An eductional game about competences • A method to reflect on the insights folowing the competence game • The list of competences • Information about the importance of APEL in Youthwork • Guidelines to work with the toolbox

23. Competence game • Competence-Sprint • General goals: • introducing the concept ‘competences’ to young people • To show volunteers they actually can learn a lot as a volunteer in a youthclub (or in youthwork in general)

24. Competence game • Concept: • Based on the popular game ‘Levensweg’ • The players fictively obtain a number of competences through voluntary work in a youthclub. • These competences will be used later in the game to deal with certain problems and difficult situation. • Two game phases • The Youthclub • The real life

25. Competence game • Jeugdhuisfase • Players fictively involve themselves as volunteer in a youthclub • In their activities they can learn a variety of competences.

26. Competence game • Real Life • Here the players will be confronted with a variety of problems and situations. • Funny twists • Race concept • The game is over when the players cross the Finish • The player with the most points is te winner

27. Reflection on the Game • After the game we want to let the players reflect on their own competences • Wich competences have they obtained in a youthclub an how • Wath are they good in and what not? • Main goal of the reflection • To have a more clear view on the own competences and how they were obtained

28. Thank you for your kind attention, I’ll be happy to answer any further questions

29. Discussion • What do you think of the accreditation of competences obtain through youthwork? • Is a version of the competence game usuable in your context and how? • Are Young people interested in Apel? • Is accreditation of competences obtained in Youthwork possible? • Do you develop methods for APEL and if so … ?